Hwaseong City Selected as Outstanding Organization in Financial Fund Performance Analysis

Hwaseong City has been selected as an outstanding basic local government for the second consecutive year following 2012 in the local government fund performance analysis conducted by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and will receive a commendation from the Minister of Public Administration and Security.

The 'Local Government Fund Performance Analysis' conducted by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security compares and evaluates the fund management performance of local governments annually. Last year's performance analysis targeted all funds operated in the 2012 fiscal year and focused on evaluating fund maintenance rate, sunset clause application rate, integrated management fund utilization rate, and fund execution rate compared to plans.

In addition to fund management, Hwaseong City has made considerable efforts toward financial soundness by reducing public facility scale to realistic levels, achieving 120.8 billion won in savings since fiscal pressure in 2010, and repaying approximately 124 billion won in local bonds through rigorous budget adjustments, thereby lowering the city's debt ratio to 10.5%.

Moreover, as a result of independent efforts including improved local tax collection rates, the city received an encouragement award in the comprehensive evaluation of local tax administration and non-tax revenue management conducted by Gyeonggi Province. According to the Ministry of Public Administration and Security's financial analysis results, the city achieved improvements of 1.09 points in financial soundness, 2.36 points in financial efficiency, and an upgrade in financial management effort rating.

However, despite these efforts, the city was recently notified of a 1.3 billion won reduction in local transfer tax from the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, but this was determined to be a separate matter from financial operations with no substantial financial loss.

Kim Don-gyeom, director of planning and budget at Hwaseong City, stated, "There were no violations of the Local Finance Act, and most cases involved omissions in tax assessment and delayed collection of development charges resulting from audit office findings, which were subsequently all assessed and collected." He added, "The excessive workload and difficult aspects of assessment under the current work system were not taken into consideration."